Crashing Criminal Court

A few weeks ago, I was called for jury duty and was promptly (wisely) dismissed. But I was there long enough to figure out it was a sexual assault case and decide the verdict on sight. Regaling my attorney/father with my legal observations, he pointed out that as a member of the public, I was allowed to sit in on criminal trials. Since I was such an expert, my father suggested I go back down to the Hall of Justice and see the legal system in action.

SO I DID.

Dun Dun.

I double-checked with a friend at the District Attorney’s office to make sure my showing up uninvited to a trial was indeed allowed. She confirmed this, and looked up the day’s trials for me, suggesting a few that might pique my interest, including a stalker case (!). I made my way to the Hall of Justice, or “850 Bryant,” and went to the 2nd Floor where the courtrooms are. Wondering where to start, I attempted to read the print-outs posted outside each courtroom but they made no sense to me. Suddenly, I realized I was standing in front of the very courtroom where I’d waited for jury duty. Would the sexual assault trial be going on?

Very nervously and expecting to be arrested at any minute, I opened the big wooden door to the courtroom. There’s a tiny foyer and windowed door before the actual courtroom, so I looked through the window. Lo and behold, there was the sexual assault case in full swing, complete with huge, poster-sized clip-art of what appeared to be a man groping a woman. I slowly pushed open the door to the courtroom and took a seat in the back, joining only two other people in the gallery (industry term).

On the right side was the jury I was almost on, at the bench was the judge who’d instructed us on jury duty stuff, and there on the left was the defense. No one seemed to care that some weird lady in jeans and a sailor shirt was sitting wide-eyed in the back row. A bailiff never told me to scram. And I sat in that courtroom for about an hour.

The trial was (is?) in well underway and fascinating, even though I was only present for a very small part. From what I could tell and based on 20 years of watching Law & Order, the woman on the stand was a forensic nurse answering questions about what constitutes a bruise. “What kind of bruising would fighting someone off leave? If we look at People’s Exhibit 25, you’ll see a bruise right here?” Every few moments, the prosecution would post a giant photo of one of the victim’s body parts on the overhead projector. Several times I thought to myself, “I should not be allowed to be here.”

Then I thought, “Why aren’t more people here?”

Basically, criminal court is a much longer, slightly more boring, but much more intimate version of Law & Order (and in this case, Law & Order SVU.) While I don’t believe the victim was present, the accused was right there, showing no emotion. The words “objection” and “sustained” were used. We saw actual crime photos. While lawyers agonized over the definition of a bruise, I looked around the courtroom. There were a lot of people spending a lot of time on a crime, the details of which I still don’t know. Every time the prosecutor would want to show another photo on the projector, the judge would ask if the defense had any objection, and vice versa. “You want to show a photo? Hold on. Are you guys cool with this? Yes? Okay, show the photo.” On and on, with each teeny tiny step of the process, there seemed to be constant checks and balances that everything was on the up and up. The complexity of the legal system is really interesting, even in person.

However, like on TV, all I could take was about an hour. Slowly and silently, I got up from my seat, still excited criminal court is open to the public. As I made my way to the door, I wanted to turn around and shout like a crazy person on Court TV, “America! Justice! Isn’t it amazing?!?”